Features

Journey to a digital future

Government has made some bold statements about how digital technologies will empower and enable South Africans, but what does a realistic picture for a digital government look like?

19 March 2020

What does a digital future really look like? For Government CIO Mandla Ngcobo, it all comes down to information. With digital technologies, governments have so many more ways to make smart, strategic decisions. This is where the real value lies for public servants and the average person on the street. For example, when government started brainstorming the idea to build the Gautrain, it first had to ask, ‘Why are we doing this?’. And the answer was clear. After doing research, government realised that a large number of people travel between Johannesburg and Pretoria every day and that many of these middle-class professionals are regularly late for work because of bumper- to-bumper traffic. It was based on this data that government made the informed move to build the rapid commuter rail system. “For digital to be impactful, it must be guided by facts, by intelligence and by data,” Ngcobo says.

Establishing new norms

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